


in a barrel

by ODed_on_jingle_jangle



Series: snakes to a mongoose [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Broken Bones, Concussions, F/M, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Major Character Injury, Minor Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Near Death, Painkillers, Season/Series 02, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-09 16:25:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14719565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ODed_on_jingle_jangle/pseuds/ODed_on_jingle_jangle
Summary: “Jug? You with me?”He turns to see his dad and offers a smile that pinches a little on the left side.“Yeah. Hi.”Then he’s being enveloped in a very careful hug, his dad holding him as though he’s a baby bird that's just pecked away the last of its egg. FP has never been the most touchy-feely father and waking up to such sudden affection is a tad disarming. Jughead knows he’s loved but it’s hardly ever shone in this way.





	in a barrel

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry not sorry, Riverdale s2e21, but people who are beaten so badly they're doused in blood and (allegedly) stop breathing don't just walk around a day or two after like nothing happened. This is the second part of my personal fix-it collection, considering some disappointments in the s2 finale.
> 
> This part reads easily enough standalone so it's not necessary to read the first part to get this, but it'd probably be helpful for Betty context.

There’s a lot going on that Jughead can’t make sense of. The last thing he remembers is Penny’s knife glinting silver in the moonlight before she culled his tattoo. Now there’s a stranger shining a bright light in his eyes. He blinks belatedly and struggles to fill the gap with how he got from the woods to here.

It’s a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces and his head is in a haze. It hurts too. There’s a lot of hurting really, but it’s all incongruent and he doesn’t quite register the specific places he's injured. At some point or another he knows that Malachi cracked him in the head with the nail bat, so he’s thinking maybe he has a concussion.

“Yes, honey, we think so too,” the stranger says, moving around too fast for him to follow.

Had he said that out loud?

Jughead’s thoughts are processing as slow as a turtle wading through molasses. Nothing is tracking right, he hadn’t meant to speak. He doesn’t know how he got here and everything feels wrong.

Everything _hurts._

“M-My dad?” he croaks, blearily looking around. There’s a lot of equipment everywhere, people in scrubs and lab coats.

He’s in the hospital? Yeah, that probably makes sense. He’s hurt, hurt and…moving?

“Your dad’s here,” she assures him gently. “He’s just giving us some room to do our jobs.”

The next thing he knows there’s the cold press of the circular stethoscope piece to his chest. Not only is it cold, but it hurts, his chest pinching uncomfortably. He clumsily tries to push it away but his coordination is disorganized and his fingers are like limp noodles. His vision isn’t right either but before he can go through the daunting chore of contemplating that, another stranger in scrubs is trying to force something over his head.

He tries to push her away too and the first doctor, or nurse, or whatever medical personnel she is, grabs his hand.

“You’re having trouble breathing, sweetie. This is going to help until we can get you some x-rays and figure out what’s going on.”

Jughead hears her words and he feels like he recognizes them, but there’s so many of them at once and the room is spinning all around him. The colors distantly remind him of going to the laundromat as a kid, holding Jellybean’s hand as they watched the clothes swirl in sudsy water.

Rainbows and bubbles.

Jughead misses his sister but he's suddenly, incredibly relieved that she is not here.

He forgets to protest as the oxygen mask is slipped over his head. He comes to the delayed realization that they’ve stopped moving and they don’t start again, Polka-Dot Scrubs giving him a serious look.

“Can you straighten your elbow for us?”

Jughead pauses and then complies. His upper arm burns and blood weeps out from beneath the pressure bandage where his tattoo once was, rolling down his skin.

“I’m bleeding,” he mutters, vaguely uneasy.

“Yeah, we’re going to take care of that too.” Polka-Dot Scrubs presses her gloved hand to his arm to staunch the reopened wound. “But I meant your other elbow, dear.”

It occurs to Jughead that she keeps giving him nicknames. Friendly ones, he thinks, and that’s weird, because those are not the nicknames he tends to get. He doesn’t know why she’s giving him nicknames. He doesn’t know why he shouldn’t straighten his elbow, either, but there is a gut feeling that if he tries it will be bad.

Even through his double vision and the fog of his probable concussion, he can see that the joint is as swollen as a grapefruit.

“Can’t,” he rasps. “Bad plan.”

Plain Blue Scrubs says something he doesn’t exactly catch about _vessels_ and _restoring blood flow_. She puts one hand on his wrist and another on his upper arm, and before Jughead can stop her, she straightens it in one fluid motion.

An ungodly wail tears from Jughead’s throat as his world explodes in an all encompassing agony. His vision whites out like an arctic snowstorm and when it clears, things aren’t any better because he hurts in new and torturous ways he can scarcely comprehend.

Even with the oxygen mask, he can’t catch his breath. Jughead wheezes, grasping at his chest. He clenches the fabric of his shirt in his fist as blinding pain rattles through his ribs. It’s all just too much.

Overwhelmed and battling for breath, Jughead falls slack on the gurney in a dead faint.

* * *

Coming to happens slowly.

The first time Jughead returns to consciousness, he doesn’t stay long. He sees the watery forms of his dad and Mrs. Cooper standing at the foot of his bed. They’re clinging to each other and one of them is crying.

Probably Mrs. Cooper.

Jughead doesn’t remember the last time he saw his dad shed a tear.

Mrs. Cooper’s shoulders are shaking, so it must be her. He blinks slowly and sees that his dad’s shoulders are also shaking.

Maybe they’re both crying.

Jughead wants to ask what’s wrong, but he can’t find his voice before the world slips away from him again.

The second time he comes around, it’s easier. His vision is still blurry but his head feels clearer. He feels different, but comfortable. Warm. Like when he’s spooning Betty in bed, her body heat toasting him like a marshmallow above the glow of a classic campfire.

“Jug? You with me?”

He turns to see his dad rising from a chair against the wall and offers a smile that pinches a little on the left side.

“Yeah. Hi.”

Then he’s being enveloped in a very careful hug, his dad holding him as though he’s a baby bird that’s just pecked away the last of its egg. FP has never been the most touchy-feely father and waking up to such sudden affection is a tad disarming. Jughead knows he’s loved, deeply so, but it’s hardly ever shone in this way.

FP shows his love by bringing home double cheeseburgers and playfully tousling Jughead’s hair in those infrequent moments he can catch him with his beanie off. He wears his love in proud smiles and in his eyes, these tender looks shot his way when Jughead least expects it.

His dad hardly hugs and he doesn’t kiss, and yet he’s kissing him now. He presses his lips gently to Jughead’s temple first, then to the top of his head, heaving out this sigh that leaves his shoulders slumped.

“I almost lost you,” he gasps in shaky syllables.

“M’okay,” Jughead murmurs even if he’s not quite sure it’s true.

He’s in a hospital bed, after all, he can’t be entirely okay. But he knows his father is spooked and he wants to reassure him.

FP huffs a laugh and releases his featherlight hug, shaking his head as he goes to drag his chair to Jughead’s bedside.

“There’s something sticking out of me,” Jughead realizes with interest, pulling back the blanket to get a better look. There’s a short tube coming out of side, in between his ribs. He reaches for it and FP stills his hand.

“You need that,” he warns, “don’t pull it out.”

“Wasn’t gonna pull it out,” Jughead argues groggily.

“Well don’t mess with it either. Just let it do its thing.”

“Um…what exactly is it doing?”

There’s a pause before FP answers, the tip of his tongue flicking over his lips. It’s in this moment that Jughead notices his eyes are red-rimmed. He was crying after all.

“It’s relieving pressure on your collapsed lung.”

“Oh.” For the first time since waking, Jughead takes stock of himself.

He’s hooked up to an IV and a nasal cannula. His left arm is propped up and heavily splinted, his right leg also splinted up to the thigh. Not an inch of his skin is bruise free. His right shoulder is bound with gauze and when he explores his face with his fingertips, they graze stitches in his cheek and forehead.

One of his eyes is nearly swollen shut, which accounts for his current blind spot and last night’s vision issues. If that was only just last night. Jughead doesn’t actually know how long he’s been out. He runs his hand through his hair and finds a bump the size of softball at the back of his skull. There’s some dried blood clotted over it. As his fingers comb back through, it flakes under his nails.

He doesn’t feel his injuries though. Hardly, anyway. He senses a dormant pain somewhere, but it’s tame and far away. He looks at his IV again and watches the clear fluid of his allotment fall drop by drop.

“Dad, am I high?”

“Yep,” he replies, not unkindly. “High as a kite.”

“I’m really fucked up, huh?” Jughead mumbles, more of an observation than a complaint. He isn’t in any pain at the moment and besides, he’d been shackled to the resignation of a fatal sacrifice if meant saving his town, his people.

It’s lucky he’s here at all.

“You’re gonna be alright.” His dad gives his uninjured cheek a ginger pat. “You’re tough. Like me, like your mom. And what you did was amaz— Jug? What’s wrong?”

He cups his hand around his mouth and shakes his head, unable to speak. If he opens his mouth, he’s going to puke. The nausea came on sudden but strong, his stomach jumping into his throat. He tries to swallow it back but the bile burns and then it’s spraying through his fingers.

“Shit, hang on a second.” His father reaches for a box of tissues on the windows and pulls out a fistful.

“Sorry,” Jughead murmurs, his stomach churning uncomfortably.

“Nah, it’s my fault,” FP says softly, wiping the mess from his hand. “They warned me you might be nauseous from the anesthesia. I should’ve asked if your stomach was bugging you.”

“Anesthesia?” Jughead repeats, bemused.

“You had surgery on your elbow,” FP explains, using another tissue to dab around his son’s mouth.

“Wow,” Jughead breathes, mildly awed. “Really?”

FP nods, tossing the soiled tissues into a wired-webbed garbage can.

“When the swelling goes down, they’ll put it in a cast. Same as your leg.”

“Had surgery on my leg too?” Jughead feels the skin on his stitched forehead tighten as his brows reach his hairline in surprise.

“No, but it’s broke.” FP leans forward in his chair, hands folding in his lap.

“What else I break?” Jughead asks, _what_ and not _if,_ because he keeps watching his dope allotment fall and as fuzzy as it makes his head feel, he knows he wouldn’t be receiving it without due damage.

“Broke most of your ribs and cracked your eye socket,” FP explains, and Jughead can detect carefully level anger lurking underneath the weariness. “Your doc wants to keep an eye on your spleen, but I’m not sure if that counts as a break.”

“My spleen?” Jughead crinkles his noise.

“You’re not in danger,” FP swears with a sudden urgency. “Don’t worry about that, Jug. I’m not letting anything else happen to you.”

“Not worried,” Jughead scoffs, feeling a wayward smirk quirk his lips. “I just think ’spleen’ is a weird word.”

FP gives an amused snort, his features softening. “They’ve got you on the good stuff, alright.”

“Think I’ll be able to get my casts in black?”

“Can’t hurt to ask.” FP shrugs. “For right now, how’s your stomach? Want me to see if there’s something they can give you?”

“It’s okay.” Jughead blinks slowly. The nausea isn’t gone but it weakened enough to be tolerable after he threw up. “I wanna know what happened.”

“A lot.” FP rubs a hand over his face.

“Tell me,” Jughead pleads.

Did it work? Penny turned their deal inside out like the walking sack of slime she was, her and Hiram. But he has to know if his sacrifice was worth something, if it did anything to salvage the state of the Serpents’ lives.

“Look, Jug, I mean it.” FP meets his gaze steadily. “A lot happened. I want to tell you everything, but I don’t know if you can take it in right now. Let’s wait until they dial back your meds, okay?”

“But it’s important,” Jughead protests, even though there’s a part of him that knows his dad has a point.

He doesn’t think he’s been awake that long, but he feels drowsy. His uninjured eyelid feels heavy and the lull of sleep teases him, pushing and pulling like a gentle tide.

“You’re right,” FP agrees, “it’s important. And that’s exactly why we’re going to talk about it when you come back from outer space.”

“But—“

“Don’t argue with me, boy,” FP warns, effectively shutting down on that topic.

Jughead can’t tell if it’s the drugs or the emergence from near death that has him feeling extra ballsy, but he comes this close to flipping his father off and the only thing that stops him is fatigue.

* * *

“Can we see him?” Archie asks, hesitating outside the doorway.

FP glances over his shoulder. “Up for company, Jug?”

“Totally.” He’s still blinking away a nap he couldn’t have woken up from more than ten minutes ago, but his friends having bad timing isn’t anything new to Jughead.

FP welcomes his guests with a sweep of the arm. Archie, Veronica, and Toni come trotting over the threshold.

“Hey,” Archie says first, plastering on this fake ass smile Jughead sees through immediately, even with the opioids singing through his bloodstream.

Veronica’s mask is more practiced, a veil of subdued stoicism. She raises her hand in a small wave.

Toni is the only one who doesn’t even try to pretend, huffing as she strides forward and throws her arms around his neck.

“You were so brave,” she praises warmly, her voice muffled into his collarbone. “Stupid, but brave.”

“Eh, I try.” Jughead returns her hug as best he can one-armed.

Toni releases him and shuffles back, sharing a look with his father that he does not miss. But before Jughead can question them, Archie holds up a plastic bag.

“These are from my dad,” he says. “He figured you’d probably be bored in here, so he dug out some of those comics we read when we were kids.”

“Knowing your dad, he kept the good ones.” Jughead cracks a smile.

“This is from me,” Veronica says, holding out a velvet, heart-shaped box. “Only the best Belgian chocolates for our edgelord Lazarus.”

“I didn’t actually come back from the dead,” Jughead starts to roll his eyes and pauses, uncertainty pushing through. “Did I?”

“They had to use the paddles,” Toni says offhandedly. “So you kind of did.”

“What?” Jughead’s jaw drops.

“Hey!” FP barks, shooting her a reproachful glower. “He didn’t need to hear that!”

Toni gasps, her hands fluttering as she looks between them. “Sorry, I figured he knew!”

“Dad, it’s fine,” he insists, blinking slowly as he absorbs this new information. “It doesn’t bother me, I mean…I’m here now.”

But there is someone who _isn’t_ here now and that is bothering him. Betty should be here. When she sees him she’s going to cry, this much Jughead knows already. Not because she’s fragile, for Betty Cooper is anything but.

His girlfriend is a a formidable force to be reckoned with. Her strength hides under deceptively delicate features and her stamina camouflages itself in pastel pink. Betty will cry because she never wants to see him in pain. She doesn't realize that her tears are going to hurt him more than any physical injury. Jughead isn’t looking forward to that part.

But he’s looking forward to the part where he wipes her tears away and says something that will bring a smile to her lips. He’s looking forward to the part where he covers them with his own and intertwines their fingers.

“Now, now, let’s all play nice,” Veronica trills lightly as she slips the plastic bag out of Archie’s hand and breezes around the bed, placing both their gifts on an empty chair.

She comes to Jughead’s side and bends at the waist, briefly brushing her lips over his cheek.

“Just to be clear, that wasn’t from me,” she elaborates before Jughead can push the question off his tired tongue. “That was from Betty.”

“Where is Betty?” he finally asks.

His confusion morphs into dread as heavy silence hushes the room, his friends all looking to his dad like they’re awaiting permission. A sickly cold feeling washes over Jughead, his chest tightening with trepidation. The monitor he’s hooked up to picks up on his increasing heart rate.

It’s an absent registration, background noise as Malachi’s smug threat rings through his ears.

_“The only scary thing is what we’re gonna do to your girlfriend when we find her.”_

“Is Betty okay?” he splutters, alarmed.

Archie bites his lip, vehemently shaking his head. “Jug—“

“Hal Cooper was the Black Hood,” FP interrupts. “He’s in jail.”

“Holy shit! Did he— he didn’t hurt her, did he?”

“No,” FP says, clipped. “Hal didn’t hurt her.”

Veronica straightens up and for a moment Jughead thinks he sees her eyes misting up, but she quickly twirls around before he knows for sure.

She swiftly winds around the bed without a backward glance.

“Excuse me for a minute, I need to find the ladies room,” she says briskly, high heels clicking on the tile.

“I think I’m gonna tag along,” Toni mumbles, darting out after her.

There’s another long stretch of silence and Jughead’s mouth is too dry for the multitude of questions tangling in at the back of his throat.

“I think he should know, Mr. Jones.” Archie says solemnly.

FP turns to Jughead wearing a grim expression, posture tensing as he approaches his bedside. He gives his shoulder a gentle squeeze and nods for Archie to continue.

Archie audibly gulps and Jughead’s heart plummets to the pit of his stomach.

“Betty is three rooms down from you…”


End file.
